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Top Medical News
Exposure to any antibiotics appears to contribute to an increase in the risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC), with the risk rising as the cumulative days of exposure increases, according to a study.
Treatment with tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) yields similar rates of recurrence and overall survival as does entecavir in patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), according to a study.
Severe dysmenorrhoea, pain related to urinary and gastrointestinal tracts, higher fertility desire and infertility rate are all associated with deep infiltrating endometriosis, according to a Singapore study. On the other hand, heavy menstrual bleeding is predictive of adenomyosis.
Treatment with the minimally invasive gastric peroral endoscopic pyloromyotomy (G-POEM) is not only safe and feasible but also effective for infants with congenital hypertrophic pyloric stenosis (CHPS), according to a recent study, noting acceptable clinical response in the short term.
In the initial endoscopic treatment of peptic ulcer bleeding, the use of polysaccharide hemostatic powder appears to be not less efficacious than conventional treatment, according to a study.
A study on titrated ondansetron for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhoea (IBS-D) has fallen short of meeting the endpoint due to being underpowered. However, when data from this study and two others were pooled in a meta-analysis, ondansetron appears to yield significant improvements in the composite endpoint set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), namely stool consistency and urgency.
Offspring born to mothers with Crohn’s disease (CD), but not ulcerative colitis, are at higher risk of infection, suggests a study. This association is partly mediated by adverse birth outcomes and antitumour necrosis factor α (anti-TNFα) agents.
Special Reports
Overall survival (OS) is currently the primary criteria in assessing the efficacy of a cancer treatment. Dr Raghav Sundar, a consultant medical oncologist at the National University Hospital, Singapore, details the crucial role played by tumour response in evaluating treatment efficacy, with a focus on the multiple kinase inhibitor lenvatinib in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
Conference Reports
The combination of nivolumab (NIVO) with either chemotherapy (chemo) or ipilimumab (IPI) continues to confer overall survival (OS) benefit as first-line treatment for patients with advanced oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) compared with chemo alone, according to updated results of the CheckMate 648 trial presented at ASCO GI 2023.
In the final surgical salvage results of the phase III OPERA* trial, boosting a neoadjuvant external beam chemoradiotherapy (EBCRT) regimen with contact X-ray brachytherapy (CXB) led to better organ preservation (OP) rates than with EB radiotherapy (EBRT) in individuals with rectal cancer.
Treatment with stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) followed by sorafenib results in better overall (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS), with no increase in adverse events (AEs), compared with sorafenib monotherapy in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), as shown in a phase III study presented at the 2023 ASCO GI Cancers Symposium.
A combination of trifluridine/tipiracil (FTD/TPI) and bevacizumab provided significant survival benefit when used as third-line treatment for refractory metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC) than FTD/TPI alone, findings from the phase III SUNLIGHT study suggest.
Clinicians should consider de-escalating combination therapy with immunomodulators to a monotherapy after 1 year in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), says an expert at Crohn’s and Colitis Congress 2023.
The use of liposomal irinotecan in combination with 5-fluorouracil, leucovorin, and oxaliplatin (NALIRIFOX regimen) significantly improved overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (mPDAC) compared with gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel (Gem+NabP) in the first-line setting, according to the NAPOLI-3* trial presented at the ASCO GI 2023.
A combination regimen comprising two herbal extracts – curcumin and Qing Dai (QD) – have shown potential in the treatment of active* ulcerative colitis (UC), according to two trials from Israel presented at Crohn’s & Colitis Congress (CCC) 2023.